Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I have nothing to add to this story, except that it’s certainly a funny old world.  The “Blairsville Enterprise,” March 14, 1899:

A petition filed at Cordele, Ga., for a receiver for the First National Bank ends a peculiar story. The bank was established by Dr. George W. Marvin. A few months after organizing it he married a Mrs. Cunningham, a widow, who brought to him a large amount of property, which was added to the capital of the bank. A few months after the marriage Mrs. Marvin died and Dr. Marvin soon married Miss Trammell, a typewriter. In 1892 Marvin died and Mrs. Marvin married Joseph E. Bivens, who succeeded to Marvin's fortune.

Mrs. Bivens died in 1896, leaving all of her property to Bivens. The most uncanny feature of the story was Mrs. Bivens' treatment of her first husband's body. She had it perfectly embalmed by an expert and placed in a glass case in her parlor.

The coffin was so arranged that whenever she entered the room an electric motor forced it up to an upright position. After her marriage with Bivens this ghastly spectacle was relegated to the graveyard.

An article in the “Commercial Appeal,” on October 11, 1896, gives a bit more information.  (As you can well imagine, I wanted to learn every available detail.)

CORDELE, Ga Oct 10—The death in this town of Mrs. Joseph E. Bivens, wife of the president of the First National Bank, recalls a sensation as ghastly as it was realistic. 

Mrs. Bivens was formerly an old maid in Atlanta where she had some little property. Dr. Marvin, a specialist from Omaha, Neb., came to Atlanta, wooed the matured maiden and made her his wife. He engaged in some real estate speculations which made him worth nearly $500,000. He then removed to this city and erected a magnificent home which was a dream in the eyes of the country people hereabouts.

The happy couple lived in this new palace, but a few weeks passed when the doctor sickened  and died. Mrs. Marvin refused to be comforted. She forbade a funeral and telegraphed to New Orleans for an expert embalmer and an expert electrician. The result of their joint efforts was that Dr. Marvin was enabled to remain in his seat in the parlor and by an electrical appliance would rise and bow to his widow and then take his seat again. Ridiculous as this may seem there was no arguing the widow out of its continuance.

After about a year of this kind of enjoyment the widow concluded to give her hand and heart to Joseph Bivens, who had become her business manager. After her marriage she carried him to her home and then it was that she gained the remarkable distinction of having two husbands in her home at the same time—one alive and the other dead. She carried Mr. Bivens to look upon the body of her dead husband in the parlor and it was only after urgent solicitation on his part that she consented to the remains being sent to Macon and buried in Rose Hill Cemetery,

Notwithstanding this very peculiar conduct Mrs. Bivens was a lady of great charity and many Christian virtues.